Biography

Maria Cebotari (original name: Ciubotaru, 10 February 1910–9 June 1949) was a Bessarabian-Romanian soprano. She was an opera singing star of the 1930s and 1940s.Beniamino Gigli stated that Cebotari was one of the greatest female voices he had ever heard. Maria Callas was compared to her, and Angela Gheorghiu named Maria Cebotari among the artists she admires the most.With thousands of people in attendance, her funeral was "one of the most imposing demonstrations of love and honor any deceased artist has ever received" in the history of Vienna. Cebotari was born in Chişinău, Bessarabia, and studied singing at the Chişinău Conservatory. In 1929, she joined the Moscow Art Theater Company as an actress. Shortly after, she married the company's leader, Count Alexander Virubov.

She soon moved to Berlin with the company and studied singing with Oskar Daniel for three months. She made her debut as an operatic singer as Mimi in La Bohème at Dresden Semperoper on 15 March 1931. Bruno Walter invited her to the Salzburg Festival, where she sang Euridice in Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice.

In 1935, she sang the part of Aminta in the world premiere of Richard Strauss' opera Die Schweigsame Frau under Karl Böhm at Dresden Semper Opera House. Strauss advised her to move to Berlin, and in 1936 she joined the Berlin State Opera, where she was a prima donna until 1946. That year, she sang Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier for the Dresden Semper Opera Company's performances at Covent Garden Royal Opera House of London. Cebotari appeared at many opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera and La Scala Opera House of Milan.

In 1938, she divorced Count Virubov and married the Austrian actor Gustav Diessl, with whom she had two sons. In 1946, she left Berlin and joined the Vienna State Opera House. The next year, she revisited Covent Garden with the Vienna State Opera Company and sang Salome, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. On September 27 of that year, she was Donna Anna to the Ottavio of Richard Tauber, in his final stage appearance less than a week before his cancerous left lung was removed.

In early 1949, she suffered severe pain during the performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at La Scala Opera House. At first, doctors did not consider it serious. However, on March 31, 1949, she collapsed during the performance of Karl Millöcker's operetta Der Bettelstudent in Vienna. During surgery on 4 April, doctors found cancer in her liver and pancreas. She died from cancer on June 9, 1949 in Vienna. British pianist Clifford Curzon and his wife Lucille Wallace adopted her two sons.

Cebotari had a versatile voice; her repertoire covered coloratura, soubrette, lyric, and dramatic roles, as is illustrated in her performance history. She concentrated on four composers: Mozart, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and Puccini. Richard Strauss described her as "the best all-rounder on the European stage, and she is never late, and she never cancels". During a BBC interview decades after her death, Herbert von Karajan said she was the greatest "Madame Butterfly" he had ever conducted.